Summer Vacation in Durango

The school year will be over before you know it, and summer vacation will be upon us. Even if you don’t have kids in school, everyone should plan a summer vacation — road trip in the family station wagon optional.

Durango is a hub for all sorts of summer fun in southwest Colorado. Breweries, national parks, forests, rivers, hiking trails, biking trails, fairs, festivals — our little mountain town delivers big summer fun. Here are a few options for things to do in Durango this summer.

Soaring Tree Top Adventures: Take the family for a full-day adventure on one of the largest and longest aerial zipline courses in the nation. This San Juan Mountain zipline tour includes 27 different zip lines that range in length from 56 feet to 1,400 feet. Guests can zoom across the Animas River and through Ponderosa pines and Aspen groves on more than 1.5 miles of cable — but the only way to get to the remote location is on rails. Guests board the Durango train to enjoy a two-hour train ride to the site, a three-course lunch and a train ride back home.

Mesa Verde National Park: Mesa Verde National Park is an amazing place. The park is home to more than 600 cliff dwellings. The Ancestral Puebloans first started building pueblos around 650 CE and by the end of the 1100s had started building the massive cliff dwellings that make the park famous, including Cliff Palace, which is thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in the nation. This is a rare place where visitors can walk through ruins that pre-date many European castles.

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway: You can’t visit Durango without riding the Durango train. Well, you can — but should you? A historic steam locomotive pulls passenger cars along the Animas River, through Animas Canyon and over San Juan Mountain passes to arrive in the mining town of Silverton. You can make the Durango train a full-day outing or opt to ride the train to Silverton and take a bus back to save time.

Four Corners Monument: Stand in four states at once at the Four Corners Monument. The monument, located on Navajo Nation land, allows visitors to stand at the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah — and is only a 1.5-hour drive southwest of Durango. Although the location is remote, the Visitor Center is open year-round. Visitors can also buy handmade jewelry, crafts and traditional foods from nearby Navajo artisans and vendors.

And, obviously, you need to spend more than a day in town to do all the amazing things Durango has to offer (heck, more than a month!), so obviously you should stay with us at the Durango Quality Inn. Summer is a crazy busy time for us, so book your room with the Quality Inn Durango today!